Monday, October 10, 2005

4-9 -- Michigan's red-zone percentage (times they've made it inside the 20 and scored) in losses to Notre Dame, Wisconsin and Minnesota. That's 44%. And of their four red-zone scores, just two have been for touchdowns.

12-12 -- Red-zone percentage by opponents in those games.

That is appalling. Just appalling. And how many of those have been first and goal situations?

5 comments:

I just watched the second half again - we did not throw one pass to a wide receiver in the middle of the field. Everything is to the sidelines. He dumped it to Breaston once on a short slant - obviously not his primary receiver. He also dumped it to the fullback once. Those were the only two in the middle of the field. NOT A SINGLE SCREEN PASS.

Perhaps the worst play calling was the second missed field goal drive. We are running the ball down their throats - Hart busts a 12 yard run, first down at the 19. We try a run, then, of course, two passes. We are so predictible in the red zone - run on first down, pass to the sideline on second and third. Ridiculous. I have a full time job, and I can figure this out. I imagine our opponents just start laughing at us during the game as they call the plays to the defense.

Rivas should be benched. Obviously, Jesus hates him. And for good reason. The sinner should be sidelined. Lloyd is a mighty man, but he's no match for the Lord and Savior. That first missed - ended up by the orange sideline marker - it was only a 42 yard kick.

THEY HAD 2 100 YARD RUSHERS AND GAVE UP ZERO SACKS. Did we blitz one time? They didn't pass much. I assume we were in run prevent defense - AND WE STILL GAVE UP 2 100 YARD RUSHERS.

If this were Japan, Herrman would've pulled out the big sword by now. Of course, I'm speaking symbolically now. His defense sucks. He has talented players - frickin' Minnesota pushed us around.

Maybe it's just hitting me - we suck. And I'm angry.

Once again, Michigan loses to a team with less individual talent.

One more thing - have we updated our play book since Lloyd/Malone have been calling plays? It seems like the same old same old.

I hope that Lloyd resigns after the season. He's a good man, a very good coach, but I want to compete for national championships. And despite having top 5 recruiting class es every year, we are effectively eliminated from tnhe national title game by the third week of the season. And this season is a nightmare.

I think we'll beat Pennsylvania State - only because in the first quarter will come out aggressive, build a lead, and then crawl into our conservative shell and hold on. I hope. Or, we could get blown out because we have a bunch of over rated underachievers who think they are much better than they actuall are. I'm out.

This stat really tells the story of the season. Very makeable TD opportunites cost us against ND and Wisco. Missed FGs killed us against Minnie (I'm going with your spelling, Yostie, since it's more feminine). It also shows we're not far off from being 5-1 or 6-0. But I guess what makes us a 3-3 team is the inability to produce when we have to.Also, the 12-12 against our defense is telling. I've been a supporter of the D since I think they've played better than I thought they would. And I think they have played decent and our offense is more to blame for our .500 record. But they don't make plays, particularly in the clutch. And that shows up in the 12-12 stat. Also, it seems they're often letting teams convert long 3rd downs to continue drives. Teams have converted 35 of 83 (42%) on third down against us. That's horrible for a Michigan team. Sadly, we're almost the same percentage (43%) on offense. No wonder we're a .500 team.

Wangs, I can't believe you watched part of that game again. I deleted it as soon as it was over. Why torture yourself like that? Besides, I'm so far behind on my "Amazing Race," "Simpsons," "Arrested Development," and "Curb Your Enthusiasm," that watching Michigan a second time would be WAY down on the priority list even if we'd pulled that game out.As for your analysis, I actually agree, though I got very confused with the religious rhetoric. I think we (either the coaches or Henne or both) are afraid to throw over the middle for fear of an interception. I understand the desire to avoid mistakes, but at this point I think that fear is killing any chance we have of scoring. In the first half against Sparty we didn't have that fear and we scored a ton of points. We went back to our old conservative tricks against Minnie.That being said, if we'd stayed conservative by running on that missed FG drive we might have scored a TD. We were picking up momentum in the running game as we did late against Sparty. But then we had a two-yard loss on first down and we threw the next two times. That was the key play call for the game.

Yeah, Benny, I agree: I can't believe Wangs watched part of that game over again either. Hell, I wanted to delete it DURING the game, it was so painful to watch the first time.

As for your comment about the 12-12 stat, that really says it all, doesn't it? I mean, not ONCE have we stopped a team when it counted most. Not once!? Sad.

And you're also correct about 3rd and long converstions by opponents KILLING us. My god, most of the time when a team has 3rd and 12 or something like that, you can breathe a little easier. Not w/ this team. Instead, I'm trying to figure out if it will be a blown tackle, a wide open receiver or a penalty that will do us in.

Oh, and Benny, as for being behind on CURB, don't worry about it. This week's episode wasn't that good.

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